Stellar Foundation and Keybase Jointly Launch a $126M Airdrop in XLM

While Ripple has been selling off its XRP asset holdings worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the cofounder is blazing another trail at his present operation. Jed McCaleb’s Stellar Foundation plans to give away almost $126 million in XLM which notably contrasts Ripple’s selling. Keybase users can now chat with their friends and get paid to do it. The Stellar Development Foundation announced on September 9 a 2 billion XLM airdrop.

The airdrop is the biggest in Stellar’s 5-year history. In the next 20 months, Keybase users can expect monthly airdrops of 100 million XLM. Currently, Keybase has almost 300,000 active users across its different services. According to an official draft blog post:

“All you have to do is have an authenticated Keybase account, and your XLM will appear in your wallet – automatically, every month, for as long as the airdrop continues.”

The company said that three months of airdrops are assured and the program’s continuation beyond that dependent on achieving the ‘basic success metrics.’

Denelle Dixon, the Stellar Development Foundation CEO, said that Keybase is an integral component of its bigger adoption strategy. He added:

“The foundation’s mandate is to deliver lumens [XLM] into the world. This is part of that plan. The up to 2 billion is a great way. And we will have checks along the way.”

Keybase and Stellar have partnered for some time dating back to March 2018. At that time, Stellar invested an amount that was big enough to close Keybase’s Series B funding round. Dixon added that the airdrop is an investment that upholds the company’s vision. Keybase’s 300,000 users share much with crypto. Commenting on the airdrop, Dixon stated:

“The number seems much more rational when looked at over 20 months. It demonstrates that we think this is a valuable opportunity for users of Keybase to get to know us. They aren’t crypto-first.”

Social Scramble

This airdrop coincides with many Keybase feature upgrades since it adopted Stellar in May 2019. Users can send Stellar to other users and phone numbers on Keybase including those phone numbers that do not have a Keybase account. Also, the users are permitted to make inline bets with their friends.

The social chatting company is reportedly planning to add more features in the coming months. Some of the expected features include on- and off-ramps and XLM-based payment functionality across the internet. This airdrop partnership comes amidst other messaging apps ramping up their localized crypto efforts.

Telegram, with over 300 million users, plans to launch its Telegram Open Network (TON) in October. Currently, several methods of sending crypto are available on the application and through independent development. Facebook’s WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger services have some 2.7 billion potential users. An early target for Libra is to make it entirely compatible with all Facebook-owned messaging platforms.

Keybase seems to be following Twitter’s lead by working with an existing crypto instead of developing one in house. A stellar spokesperson said:

Airdrop Conditions

Stellar Foundation said that eligible participants in the airdrop must have owned a Keybase account before the September 9 announcement. On the other hand, if they are new to the messenger, they will have to connect the Keybase account to a Github or HackerNews account that was opened before Sept. 9.

This airdrop will run for at least three months and then the Stellar Foundation will determine its success. If successful, it will continue. Stellar is a payment technology on the Ripple Protocol ranking 12th in the market capitalization list. Currently, XLM is trading at $0.0609, having gained 2.3% over the past 24 hours.